Upon hearing this, Mu Yiran sat down and looked at the screen with Ke Xun.
Ke Xun pointed to a symbol on the screen: "My first discovery is this guy; it's bigger than all the other symbols."
Mu Yiran stared at it for a while, then nodded: "That's right, this symbol is 'tall and imposing' than the others. According to the ancient Chinese painting psychology and habits, people of high status are usually depicted as taller and more prominent than minor figures.
"So this symbol likely represents someone with a leadership position, and this person will appear frequently in later scenes."
"Look, the images on the entire A-side rock wall, when combined, seem to form a coherent and grand scene of shamanic prayer. The small section we cleared out earlier resembles people or spirits, arranging the dead, beasts, and seemingly dead spirits in a certain order. This is clearly preparation for a ritual or shamanic prayer.
The presence of this tall, imposing 'person' in every scene of the A-side rock paintings likely indicates that he presided over or guided the entire shamanic prayer process. Therefore, this person might be a high-ranking shaman." Ke
Xun gave a knowing look, and Mu Yiran gestured for him to continue. Ke Xun glanced at the crowd who had finished eating and crawled back into their tents to listen to him and Mu Yiran talk. He shrunk the image on the computer screen to fit the entire rock painting, then circled it with his finger: "The second discovery, you might need to use your imagination, the screen is too small, you can't see the proportions clearly at all—the second discovery is that in this sacrificial ritual, all these suspected sacrificial dead people, dead beasts, and dead monsters seem to have been separated by category and then arranged in a huge circle... Hey hey!" "
As Ke Xun spoke, everyone strained to get their heads closer to the screen. Two or three heads squeezed between Ke Xun and Mu Yiran, and Luo Cheng simply leaned his entire weight on Ke Xun, craning his neck to look.
Unfortunately, the screen was too small and the rock paintings were too large. When shrunk to this size, the symbols on the screen became blurry little black blocks, and nothing could be seen at all.
However, Mu Yiran had obviously imagined the scene Ke Xun was describing. He pointed his finger at the screen and drew a three-ring concentric circle in the air, asking Ke Xun, "Do you mean it like this?"
Ke Xun, leaning against the carpet, responded with difficulty from under Luo Cheng's arm: "Yes, that's it. The whole sacrificial ceremony was very grand. At first glance, it looked a bit chaotic, but you know, I've seen too many group formations since I was a child. I'm especially good at finding my teammates from hundreds of athletes in various sportswear on a playground. So, the subconscious habit of 'searching' and 'classifying' has become my instinct."
"There are all sorts of strange symbols mixed together in this sacrificial scene, but as I looked at it, I noticed that the positions of each type of offering, when connected, form a very regular large circle, spreading out in concentric circles like ripples on water.
"It's actually just like the rock platform we see at night, surrounded by dead animal carcasses, except the carcasses around the rock platform aren't arranged in a regular circle.
"And what's very strange is that the corpses around the rock platform should at least be distributed radiating from the platform, but the center of these offerings in the rock painting is empty, a blank space, no altar, no idols or other markers. Isn't that strange?"
"It is indeed strange," Shao Ling was pushed out of the crowd, "Any kind of idol or belief worship should have an image or totem."
"Could they be worshipping invisible people?" Luo Yu said.
"Maybe it's really possible." Wu You nodded quickly. "Invisible people can't see you, so they're basically gods, right? That's why they worship gods."
"Even if they are gods, people will give them an image," Shao Ling shook his head. "For example, Buddha, the Three Pure Ones, even Ox-Head and Horse-Face, Black and White Impermanence, all have a concrete image to represent them. Otherwise, their persuasiveness to the people would be much weaker. If you were asked to worship a wisp of air every day and told that it was the god who controls wealth, would you have faith in the power of that wisp of air?"
"…No," Wu You shook his head. "Then I'd rather worship Boss Mu directly than worship air. If Boss Mu is happy, he'll give me a big red envelope and I'll be rich. It's faster to make money."
Mu Yiran: "…"
"So for the ancients who believed more in the power of gods and ghosts, if the object of worship was a wisp of nothingness, it obviously wouldn't meet their psychological expectations," Shao Ling said.
"I think we should examine every detail of the rock paintings carefully," Hua Jiqiu said. "The overall composition is equally important; the composition and layout of a painting often contain countless deeper meanings that are not visible on the surface. Unfortunately, the computer screen is too small to display the entire image at once."
"I have one in the trunk…" Mu Yiran said.
"Okay!" Luo Yiran immediately jumped out of the tent to rummage through the trunk.
Whatever it was, as long as it was there, that was good enough.
He then retrieved a projector.
Fortunately, the tent Luo Yiran provided was a military green tent, thick and sturdy, and there was almost no light inside after the curtains were drawn. So Zhu Haowen was responsible for connecting the projector to the computer and adjusting the image clarity.
The equipment that Boss Mu brought was, of course, high-tech. Even after the image was magnified to cover the entire tent wall, it remained clear and detailed. In addition, these symbols had been noise-reduced by Wei Dong, so they looked no different from those drawn directly on the computer by hand.
Despite optimizing these symbols to such an extreme degree, the group still struggled to comprehend the forms and behaviors of these creatures, resembling both humans and animals, using their existing knowledge.
Although these creatures were represented merely as simple line drawings on a flat surface, constructing their real-world appearance was impossible through mere imagination.
Their forms were beyond description, even with the richest Chinese language; their behavior was obscure and difficult to understand, while the atmosphere permeating their expressions, limbs, movements, and even emotions was exceptionally eerie and terrifying.
When the entire image was magnified to the size of an entire wall, the indescribable emotions and atmosphere emanating from it instantly filled the enclosed tent, pressing down heavily on everyone's hearts as if it were a tangible weight. Just
as everyone was feeling somewhat suffocated, Ke Xun suddenly spoke, his clear, soothing voice bringing a slight sense of relief: "Next, is my third discovery."
Everyone was startled and quickly looked in the direction he was pointing.
Ke Xun stretched out his arm, pointing to the tall, imposing symbol on the screen: "It's still that one. I first noticed it because it was bigger than the other symbols, so I paid extra attention to it. After observing it carefully for a while, aside from its size, the part that caught my attention the most was its head, or rather, its face.
"Look closely at its face—did you notice? On the lines that seem to represent its face, there's a small protrusion on each side.
"A long time ago, I probably wouldn't have paid any attention to these two little protrusions, but interestingly—you should have seen my WeChat profile picture—yes, that simple line drawing of a little person.
"I drew that little person myself. I'm terrible at drawing, but years of experience watching cartoons and comics made me thoughtfully add two eyes to this simple line drawing."
"And those two eyes are almost identical to the two small bumps on the face of this symbol. Mr. Shao said that the style of ancient murals and rock carvings was originally very simple and unadorned. I think it might be similar to the way we draw simple line drawings of little figures in modern times, which is why this coincidence occurred.
"Of course, that's not the point. The point is that because of the simple line drawing of a little figure in my WeChat profile picture, I automatically imagined the two small bumps on this symbol as its eyes. Then I discovered that in this entire rock painting, among all the symbols representing living organisms, only this one has eyes on its face.
"It's the largest, and it's the only one with eyes. It appears in various places throughout the rock painting, so obviously, as Yiran said, it's a 'protagonist.'
"But I don't think the other symbols representing living organisms don't have eyes. The reason why only this one in the picture has eyes, I think, is simply because it's different from others, or that it can see things that other creatures can't. What do you all think?"
Everyone wore expressions of surprise and realization.
If it weren't for the coincidence that Ke Xun used his own simple drawing as his portrait, they probably wouldn't have noticed such a subtle detail. "
Ke's discovery is very important," Hua Jiqiu said. "I agree that it might be able to see things that other creatures can't. Could this explain the blank space at the center of the sacrificial scene? —Because what they are sacrificing is invisible to the general public; only the leader, or rather, the high priest, can see it."
"Then, the eyes on its face likely represent what we previously called 'observation,'" Zhu Haowen said. "It could very well be a 'person' with the power of 'observation,' or even a god, spirit, or ghost."
"Could it be that what it's observing is…the things underground?" Wu You shifted uncomfortably on the blanket.
"I think we still need to organize the symbols on the other three rock walls and piece them together to form the complete picture shown on the rock walls before we can find more clues." "Yue Cen said.
"Dongzi," Ke Xun said to Wei Dong, who was listening in a daze, "Hurry up and eat something, eat and drink your fill before you get back to work, and put the remaining BCD sets of pictures back together exactly as they were."
Wei Dong wiped his mouth: "I'm not eating anymore, I'll start now, it'll be done quickly, I'll show you the speed of a chosen artist."
"It's the speed of a single dog." Ke Xun turned and whispered to Mu Yiran beside him.
Mu Yiran nodded.
Author's note:
Ke Xun: I run fast
. Fang Fei: I swim fast.
Qingqing: I remember fast.
Luo Meng: I cry fast...
Wei Dong: I... have fast hands...
Boss: I move fast.
Ke Xun: ......